The Climate Research Laboratory places special emphasis on studies of unusual variations in weather and climate, the physical process of climate and its changes, and understanding and predicting the climate and its changes through using numerical models.
The objectives of these studies are to establish a physical basis for dynamic, long-rangen weather forecasts on a time scale of one to six months, to predict the global climate over periods of several months to several years, and to assess the response of the climate to natural and man-made influences over periods of years to decades.
Study of climate system and climate model
Development of climate prediction and long-range forecast
Detection and impact assessment of climate change
Study of extreme climate
Study of paleoclimatology
Fundamental studies for the improvement of short-term climate prediction
A study of climate variability and its effects on East Asia
Future climate change projection and production using a coupled atmosphere-ocean model.
Data analysis to understand, monitor and project climate change in East Asia
Development of regional climate scenarios using downscaling technique
Production of local climate information for impact assessment study

Understanding the climate variability is essential to comprehend the mechanism of unusual variations in weather and climate and improve predicting the climate and its changes. East Asian climate is significantly influenced by various phenomena such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), the Artic Oscillation (AO), and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Long-term variation of large scale atmospheric circulation is examined by using observational data to understand those mechanism and impacts.
Various numerical experiments are performed with an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) and a regional climate model (RCM).

30-60-day bandpass-filtered daily anomalies of 850 hPa wind and OLR are regressed on the precipitation in Korean region during summer 1979-2005. Figure shows that summer rainfall in Korea is associated with strong surge of southwesterly wind from southeastern part of China, which are propagated from tropical region.
Observations, future projections of global and regional climate are collected to investigate the past, present, and future climate change in East Asia. Data analysis results enhance understanding of atmospheric and climate variability and monitoring of climate change. Analysis is conducted using statistical tool such as EOF, CSEOF, regression, parametric methods.

Main themes of the studies are
 
Climate processes: Atmosphere, Ocean and Land
Climate predictability: East Asian Monsoon, Intraseasonal Oscillation
Climate system: North Atlantic Oscillation, Artic Oscillation, El Nino/La Nina, Storm track
Climate change: Global warming, Climate change indicator
Climate Extremes: heat wave, drought, heavy rainfall, heavy snowfall, cold surge
Paleoclimate

Analysis result focusing on climate change over Korea is used to understand the climate change impact assessment on agriculture, water-resources, ecosystems, etc. It promotes the application of climate data.
During the last century, the evidence of increase of the mean annual temperature at the Earth's surface and  the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is clear. In the past decade, significant progress has been made toward a better understanding of the climate system and toward improved projections of long-term climate change. In these regards, we have been producing some future climate scenarios and projections using a coupled atmosphere-ocean model.


Change in annual mean surface air temperature and precipitation rate in the future.
Change in annual mean sea-level pressure and 200 hPa wind in the future. The low-pressure nomaly in high-latitudes, the high-pressure anomaly in mid-latitudes and the strong westerly winds between them will be dominant.
Recently, it has become more important to develop dynamical climate models as a crucial tool to predict the future climate and understand the mechanism of climate variability.

The Climate Research Laboratory constructed a dynamic ensemble system using a global climate model and has run this system since several years for producing climate prediction information. As a future research project, a plan is afoot to develop a coupled ocean-atmosphere forecast systems for the purposes of short-term climate prediction which covers from seasonal to interannual period.

The difference between the precipitation in DJF of 1997/98 (El Nino) and DJF of 1988/89 (La Nina), obtained from (a) CMAP precipitation and (b) hindcast data of the global model. Hindcast experiments were performed with persisted SST anomaly as SMIP/HFP type.
The Climate Research Laboratory has produced the information on seasonal outlook by using Meteorological Research Institute (METRI) dynamic ensemble model several years ago, and has provided it to related operational and research centers. In 2005, the METRI 3-month prediction system has been developed using METRI AGCM. The results from the METRI 3-month prediction system have been provided every month since March 2006 to the operational division.

The METRI Ensemble Prediction System performs 10-member ensemble runs based on the METRI AGCM with lagged initial conditions. As a surface boundary forcing, observed sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly is persisted for forecast periods.

A sample figure for the 3-month forecast produced by the METRI EPS. The METRI AGCM produces similar patterns to target month observation for every lead times, resulting in consistence with each prediction, although shorter lead time makes better prediction in general.
High resolution climate information is critical for an assessment of climate change impacts and possible adaptation/mitigation measures. This is especially the case for regions, such as the Korean peninsula, characterized by complex coastlines and topographical features. We developed the dynamic downscaling system based on the regional climate model, with focus on the possible application of the fine scale fields to impacts studies

Our ultimate purpose is to investigate the potential change in regional surface climate due to the global warming and to produce higher quality regional surface climate information with a focus on the Korean Peninsula for comprehensive impact assessment. Toward this purpose, we carried out a series of experiments to assess whether the regional climate model system developed in this study are adequate for providing reasonable fine scale information on various temporal and spatial scales.

RegCM3 one-way double-nested domain system and topography for the mother (60 km grid spacing) and nested (20 km grid spacing) simulations.